Game Theory - The New Giggleland ARG is DISTURBING

Episode Date: July 31, 2025

The GiggleLand Game is finally here…well not exactly. After a long and complicated ARG, Game Theory Host Tom is excited to talk about a game that isn’t the game to help solve the game that isn’t a game yet. And if that confused you, just you wait because the second act of the Giggleland ARG is possibly the MOST confusing one I’ve ever worked on, and I mean that in the BEST way.

The Giggle Land game is finally here. After the long and complicated ARG, we now get to find out what it was all leading to. Uh, Tom, you know, this isn't the game, right? What do you mean? Yeah, it's just a mini game used for the ARG. Oh, um, and we're going to solve that ARG right now. Hello, Internet. Welcome to Game Theory, the show that's excited to talk about a game that isn't the game

to help solve the game that isn't a game yet. And if that confused you, just you wait, because the second act of the Giggleland ARG is possibly the most confusing ARG I've ever worked on. And I mean that in the best way. Not one method of solving this thing is the same. Each puzzle is more intricate than the last. What started as a simple advert for a game coming to Steam has blown up into an intricate puzzle that gives us insight into the world we may be exploring once the game finally releases.

It's all about a commune known. as the Kids Media Workshop or KMW, and they follow the works of child psychoanalyst Eric Erickson to the extreme, fixated on making children happier, making sure they would never, ever cry. They offered rest by care to parents with troubled children. They even created TV shows written by kids for kids, teaching them how to better themselves and how to tackle bullies. But after discovering an episode of the show last time, we learned that they had some unconventional ideas on how to cope with these bullies.

Like burying them in the dirt. I mean, I'm sure we've all thought about doing that to someone, but HR tells me it's probably best we don't actually do it. Needless to say, the KMW's leader Terry has some twisted ideas on how to educate children. But the ultimate reveal has been all about the KMW search for a girl named Sarah, who we learnt has a Tumblr account where she shares about her sheltered life. We theorized that her mother, Debbie, chose to rebel and leave the commune many, years ago due to the isolation from the outside world that they forced upon her.

And now we're seeing Sarah do the same, an isolated girl looking for answers, which she finds as she sneaks into the basement and discovers a tape of the KMW's TV show, Elliot and Ella. However, she quickly realizes that this disturbing show wasn't just made by the KMW. It was made by none other than her own mother. And her mysterious but absent father, Simon. And that is where the Act 2 of this ARG kicks off, and boy, is it a juicy one. Once again, shout out to the Giggleland Discord for solving some of these puzzles, because they were hard. But when we unite as theorists, puzzle solvers and big brain thinkers, anything is possible. Thanks to everyone's hard work, we now get to see the inner workings of the KMW, what they were up to and how Debbie was involved in all of it.

But before we can get to that, we've got to rewind the clock to just before Act 2 official. started. During this time, Sarah was still speaking through her Tumblr account. After a brief hiatus, you know, due to her learning that her mum made a murder cartoon, she decides that she needs to investigate further. What else could be down in the basement? Could there be more answers to her mother's past? So, she sneaks back down a few times and finds some old diaries, which she then takes back to her room to snap a few photos. That way, she can look at them whenever she wants without her mum knowing. I gotta say, pretty smart move there, Sarah. Except that when she goes to put the diaries back into the basement, we get this final message.

Someone just opened the basement door. Sounds like Debbie finally caught Sarah in the act. And given how controlling Debbie has been before this and the fact that Sarah is no longer posting, it probably means that Sarah's phone and laptop privileges have been revoked. And just before she could post the photos of the diary too, that would have been so much help. This set the scene for the second act of the Giggle Land ARG, Because around that same time, GiggleLand posted on the official Discord server that their website had been updated. According to them, they'd fixed all of the bugs.

But in the world of ARGs, that usually means there's some new stuff to start investigating. Although, at first, it does actually kind of just seem like they did what they said they'd do. They fixed it. There's no weird symbols, slanted images, or the general ARG horror stuff that you would expect. But despite the KMW's attempts to fix everything, a few errors did slip through the cracks. In the top left corner under the KMW logo, there is a flashing visitors counter. Only, it wasn't showing us a number, but a random string of letters. Letters that looked just like the end of a URL.

But for what? It didn't work at the end of the giggle.combe website, so there must be somewhere else we need to look. And that somewhere is the guest book. We didn't talk much about this guest book last time, but it was filled with a bunch of random symbols that couldn't be translated. So we just kind of left it. But now, the guest book page has. has a statement explaining that the guest book is permanently closed due to said glitches.

However, while it looks like a totally normal message, there's more to this thing than meets the eye. The statement says, we know many users valued the guest book as a place to paste messages, ideas, or snippets of text. And we encourage you to find safe, dedicated alternatives to continue sharing. Hmm, dedicated alternatives, you say. Hang on, there is an online service that does allow users to share messages, and snippets of text, plus it uses a unique URL like the code we found, a paste bin address. It feels like a bit of a long shot, but what if we tried that? Well, we do get a new page, but it's password protected.

Nothing is ever simple, is it. And this ARG is only just getting started, so we have no other words or clues to go off of. So we have to keep snooping around until we find something. Last time, we found the backdoor of the website where all the files sat so neatly for us to look through. So I guess that's another pretty good place to check. see if anything has changed. And changed, it has. Star.h.tml was where we found a quote from the psychologist Eric Erickson about how leaving children to cry can affect their mental development. That's no longer there. Instead,

it's a conversation between two people. Some of the text has been redacted, but basically they're talking about a kid that's been crying. But the weird part is that he's afraid he's going to be fed to a tree. That's weird, right? But the vines felt strangely familiar to that episode of Elliot and Ella in the previous ARG, where Elliot stood up to the bullies by burying them. Could this kid be describing another creepy episode of the show where the bad kids get fed to the tree? It's something to think about,

but there's a more important detail here for right now. Discord user Cass discovered that the font used on this page is actually different from the others. Some of the capital letters are not in the right order. S is where A should be. F is where B should be. And we don't see those letters appear in the font. user Rinchy also noticed that the start of each line begins with the same letters that are

incorrect in said font data. So by writing all of those letters down and then replacing them with the correct letters S equals A, F equals B, L equals C and so on, we get the word cry baby, which once again ties us back to the teachings of Eric Erickson and his belief that leaving a baby to cry would seriously affect the child's trust in people. Maybe we're about to dive into the psychology of children a little more. So, let's put the word crybaby into our locked paste bin to see if that would unlock it. Guys, I'm in.

What juicy lore is waiting for us behind this password barrier? More hints towards the KMW, their plans, their evil killer mascots? Sadly, no. All that awaited us were two words. Fun brew. Ha. Not exactly sure what that means. Is this a new kind of home brew D&D campaign?

Or maybe it's just a fun kind of tea. Although brewing a classic cup of Yorkshire tea is fun already. So I have no idea. idea how they would top it. I guess we'll just have to pocket this little clue for later and keep digging around the Gigeland website to see where it goes. Another page we briefly mentioned last time but didn't really go anywhere was fun.html, which has a bunch of images of Elliot looping round and round. But once again, I am happy to report that it too has received a very small change that gives us something to work with. It's a blink and you'll miss it kind of moment. By going to the asset folder of giggle. Land, you can find that this image of Elliot is actually a gift. And by extracting each frame of the GIF, we get a QR code.

But you may notice that it's a little, little for a QR code. And it is because this is what is called a micro QR code. Micro QR codes are unusual as you can't just use your phone's camera to scan it. You have to use a dedicated app. Although, they are easy enough to get your hands on. And when you scan this one, you get the word lifeless. This one feels a little less connected than Crybaby, although it's definitely more connected than FunBrew. I guess lifeless could relate to what happens to a child that is a crybaby.

Like they become an untrusting lifeless husk of a person? But I'll admit that feels like I'm clutching at straws. Clearly, these words are pieces of a code that we've yet to figure out the full meaning of. So, let's keep looking for some others. Maybe the bug report page has something. It looks pretty normal, like it and all the other pages did before. But we theorists know that sometimes you've got to dig a little deeper than what's on the surface. You have to dig through the source code.

And it's here where we can find something unusual, a Windows system error report. But unlike a normal system error, this one is all written in hex code. Hexcode is just a bunch of numbers and letters that correspond to a specific letter. And it converts to the phrase, it wears my skin. Okay, now we're getting to the creepy stuff. But who is saying this to us? My mind went straight to Elliot from the secret episode of Elliot and Ella. We see him stand up to the bullies and a bunch of weird glitches happen.

Suddenly, they're all buried and Elliot is fine, as though something took over him. The website also used to be riddled with pentagrams, upside down crosses and other symbols. So it felt like there was some kind of demonic possession taking place with these creepy mascots. The idea of it wearing my skin could also be pointing us in that direction. When Elliot is being bullied, he becomes possessed. A demonic spirit takes control of him wearing his skin, as it were, making him do these horrible things. Ugh, and right as we've discovered this, while I'm, I'm in the middle of research, no joke, a YouTube ad has rudely interrupted my background music.

What kind of advert dared to interrupt my law-fi listening experience, you ask? It was an ad for something called Fun Kids Game Zone, a website where you can play loads of cool games, one of which is suspiciously called Elliot's Adventure, and it features a familiar orange cat. And this is where we finally get to play a game in this ARG. No, to be clear, it's not THE game, just A game. I know, it's weird, but hey, it's something. Elliot's adventure is a cute 2D side-scrolling platformer where Elliot has to help the animal townspeople from an evil sorcerer. You help them by fighting off bears and bees that drop items that the townspeople need, like shovels, watering cans and cloth.

Once you collect them all, you can move to the next area, which takes a bit of a turn in aesthetics. Suddenly, you're deep in a forest, and instead of cute animals to talk to, there are human children. And they aren't exactly welcoming. These children ask you to find stuff too, but it's not cute stuff like before. This time you need to find them sundials, knives, skulls and stone heads. And it only gets weirder as you start to explore the next stage. The enemies that drop these items are clay monsters, piles of flesh and fire snakes. Not only that, but now the background is covered with stone statues of faces and totem poles.

This game, just like the TV show, has suddenly taken a very dark and sinister turn. Although, I don't know about you, looking at all of these new details, it really screams of Aztec to me. Which makes me wonder if there's some connection between Aztec mythology and the KMW cult. The fire snake specifically stood out here as the fire serpent is commonly seen across Aztec religions as the spiritual form of the god Shulteutte. This god was also considered the embodiment of the dry season. And when the dry seasons came, they would then try to appeal to the god of rain, Tlaalok, in order to undo it. And how did they plan on achieving this? Oh, nothing major.

Just an itty bit of child sacrifice. Is this why we saw the KMW putting on the facade of giving parents respite by looking after their children to lord troubled children into their care where they could be sacrificed? And it gets even crazier than that. Because one of the other gods in Aztec culture is Shipe Totec, also known as our lord the flayed one. Like with the other gods, Aztecs performed a ritual for this god, this time symbolizing the shedding of the old and new. growth, similar to how a seed sheds its husk when it blooms into a flower. But the way Aztec symbolized this and gave praise to this deity is where things get real

dark. They would not only sacrifice people like we've mentioned, they would then wear their skin. Guys, if you just want to show people you've changed, get a haircut. But suddenly that quote, it wears my skin, has a whole new and far more literal meaning. Whoever was sending this message had literally been part of the real. ritual, becoming the skin that someone wore. I hope this isn't what's happening in this story, but the pieces are just fitting together all too nicely.

Perhaps the ending of Elliot's adventure will confirm or deny this chilling comparison. There are a bunch of different endings in this game, and all of them are weird in their own ways. When you complete the game normally, it suddenly cuts to everyone cheering for Elliot. Despite never encountering the sorcerer, apparently you somehow defeated them. But then it cuts to black and red text appears. What did you do to the sorcerer, Elliot? And then the game reboots.

If this sorcerer is supposed to appear after you collect the strange Aztec items, it could be one of the Aztec gods we suspected is at the center of this evil child cult. Another ending comes from giving rare items to the NPCs. If you give a blanket to one of the children in the second village, she tells us this is a blanket that her family gave her and now she wants to go back home. But she is told she can't. Once this conversation ends, an image is automatically downloaded to your computer. This image is of a man called René Spitz, another child psychoanalyst like Eric Erickson.

He was known for his study of children's development when they were deprived of a caregiver, how it can impede their mental development, but even increase infections and mortality rates. The child we speak to in this game says they want to go home, but she is told she can't. Much like we learned about Sarah's mum Debbie in Act 1. the KMW is taking children away from their parents, willing or otherwise. But that feels a little weird, right? Last time, the idea of Eric Erickson was to stop the bad thing happening, to stop the kids crying out like he taught.

But here, we are seeing them do exactly what René Spitz tells them not to do. Are they just doing it to make them weaker and easier to sacrifice? Or is it something else? Like they're weeding out the weak. The children's sacrifice to the rain god Tla-lock in Aztec rituals often needed to be brought to tears before being sacrificed as a good omen for the rains to come. So maybe this is how they pick which gets sacrificed and which become like Debbie and Simon. If they break down and cry because they've lost their caregiver, you sacrifice some.

If they go down the path of Eric Erickson and stop crying, they become part of the cult. After this interaction with the NPC, the game reset and you can complete it as normal. But instead of the townspeople cheering for Elliot, he is alone and confused. Suddenly, the game glitches out and the text box begins to show a bunch of numbers. And I mean, a lot of numbers. Ah, we haven't seen this guy in a while, a Polybius square cipher. Basically, a substitution cipher where each letter in a message is replaced with its corresponding coordinates within a 5x5 grid. Man, Giggle Land really requires you to know every cipher in the book, and I am here for it.

Once decoded, we get the following message. Quote, you have to get out of here. They're going to do something to her. If he takes her, we'll never see her again. You two need to leave quickly. Pack your things and head out with K, C, and M. They'll be waiting for you near the back of the barn at 1am. I wish I could protect you.

But they will. T keeps watching me. He senses my fear. If I go, he'll follow. I'll keep him distracted for however long it takes. Raise her to have a normal life. I promise we'll both be a family again. I don't know when, but we will.

I love you. This her has to be Sarah. We know that Debbie had a child while in the. commune and left. But more importantly, with phrases like, will both be a family again, that must mean that this message is written by the one and only Simon, Sarah's father that we learned about right at the end of Act 1. Debbie wasn't just driven away from the commune because she felt isolated or she saw through their lies. She was told by her partner. And if she didn't, they were going to do something to Sarah so that they would never see her again.

Maybe they'd sacrifice her like all the other children, which is why she is She is overprotective of Sarah now, stopping her from going outside because of what could happen if she's found. But we are nowhere near done with this game or the secrets it holds. One of the other rare items is a flower that, when given to the horse in the first village, triggers some new dialogue. She claims the flower has special properties, like how we use aloe when we cut ourselves or lavender to help us when we're sad. But this flower is good for young people because, quote, someone or something has to keep the... them in line. So is this some kind of hallucinogenic flower? Something to calm the kids down and make them more agreeable? Are they using it to change the way the kids think so that the kids who

join the cult can be brainwashed? Either way, now that we know about each rare item, we can get a new ending. By getting the flour in the blanket, giving them to the NPCs and then completing the game, you'll be transported to a farm. Talking to the farmer, Mr. T, he thanks Elliot for all the help he's done, but says there's more to do. Some seeds need to be planted, and we must ensure they grow properly. He asks Elliot to bring the seeds to him, that they may be purified from the evil sorcerer. Now, maybe it's just my religious upbringing. The phrases relating to the work not being done and that there are seeds to sow and or be harvested feel very religious to me. And with the guy running the farm being called Mr. T, it didn't take me long to make the connection to the guy

leading the cult, Terry, which means the seeds he's talking about aren't literal seeds. They're the thing that this cult, the KMW, are obsessed with. Children. Young plants that haven't yet fully developed. They need to be raised to be happy. And it's up to Elliot to bring those children to Mr. T so he can purify them. And given all of the Aztec stuff we've talked about today, I have a feeling purify. Doesn't mean giving them a bath.

Elliot is bringing the children to Mr. T to be sacrificed. But if Mr. T is the video game counterpart of Terry, the cult leader, who then is Elliot supposed to be? Who is the accomplice to Terry and his crazy messed up rituals? Well, the answers are hiding in the one ending we haven't tried out yet. If you're skilled enough and can finish the 2D side-scroller without taking any damage, you can achieve the hitless ending. Instead of it ending like usual, interacting with the sign to move to the final area, a portal appears that you can then walk through. This portal triggers a glitch, and you are told player entity failed to register incoming damage. Debugging required.

Issue persists across multiple instances. Please investigate using the dev build. Giggleland underscore dev build underscore 9213.Zip. This is our next step to solving the puzzle friends. There is even more to this game than we have already played. And this is where the questions we've been asking can be answered. What are they doing the sacrifices for? Where does Sarah fit into all this?

And who is Elliot? The problem is you can't just access the dev build. Not easily, anyway. There are breadcrumbs that lead us to where it might be hiding, and inside it are the secrets to everything. But that is all going to have to wait till next time. So, as always, theorists, remember, it's all just a theory. A game theory.

Thanks for watching.